You have the cart before the horse.
First, audit.
Maybe everything is fine, yay, let’s proceed.
Maybe, as I suspect, everything is on fire. Then discuss how to fix the fires.
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“make certain that informal systems gets paid” = “dump ATOMs all day”
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the sentiment of the community, as can be seen on X, is: let’s audit the ICF.
If you wanna build trust, learn to listen to the community.
By finding reasons why not to audit the ICF, you do the opposite.
And, respectfully, but with the ICF not even being able to deliver a annual report, you’re just further proving that you’re not capable of doing what is needed. Agee with @LitBit
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Transparency is a principle which every organization should abide by. Especially in this space.
While we are thankful for the delegations the ICF has placed with us, FreshSTAKING’s own guiding principles are doing what is best for the community first, the token second and ourselves third.
Furthermore, ICF itself, as mentioned by @ImmutableLawyer, should uphold their fiduciary and ethical duty to the community and that requires transparency, integrity, and accountability.
For this reason, we are in favor of this proposal, and we believe that any entity opposed to it has the order of their principles inverted or misplaced. We, as in the community, will not forgive or forget any entity opposed to an audit. They might oppose other aspects of this effort or the people behind it, but NOT the audit.
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Hey @JulienViolet ,
I tend to disagree with your statement here.
The scope of the audit (as I understand it) wouldn’t be horoscopical in nature (I personally don’t know if that’s a word).
The scope of the audit is to conduct an in-depth assessment into the ICF’s operations spanning across different verticals including operations, finances, legal (policies and procedures), internal mechanisms to mitigate conflicts of interests etc.
The Cosmos ecosystem is at a crossroads whereby it wants to offer its feedback in relation to what can be done better by the ICF, yet this cannot be done without delineating the root cause of the mismanagement.
A medical practitioner cannot offer you a diagnosis, nor the medical plan to treat the results of that diagnosis without the diagnosis happening in the first place. Similarly, the Cosmos ecosystem cannot provide feedback to the ICF if it doesn’t even know what’s happening/how it’s operating internally in the first place - all we know is that the results of its current iteration are sub-par, opaque and lack the necessary transparency required out of such an institution.
The objective in my eyes is clear; take stock of the ICF’s status quo in its current iteration - review the findings and then proceed to propose a new iteration of the ICF based on the diagnosis carried out. As I see it, if the ICF is confident that it’s done a good job, there shouldn’t be any pushback to effecting this audit.
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I like this a little shuffling of feathers is important in the ecosystem. If ICF is not open to Audit that in itself is a red signal.
All public companies should be ready to be audited by public stakeholders.
And we need ICF to be product based sell the CosmosSDK and also make it revenue generating.
Think of AndroidSDK/MongoDB as examples of successful opensource project stacks.
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The smart move for the ICF now is to do the audit without this needing to be voted on.
Even if the audit shows everything to be perfect, we know that the community at large struggle to trust the ICF and trust isn’t earned by being compelled.
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First, JulienViolet is a lovely name.
Thank you for your engagement and questions.
RE: “culture of diagnosis/fatalism”
I don’t think a culture of informed diagnosis is bad.
Blind and uninformed diagnosis is harmful, and that’s what we’re aiming to avoid through an audit.
Disagree with your characterization or association of the proposal with “fatalism.”
To the contrary, the proposal is structured to proactively address and rectify ongoing issues that have likely persisted due to a pattern of conflict avoidance, negligence, and or inexperience.
In essence, the proposal for an audit is a solution-oriented outcome-based approach that assumes positive change is possible with the right information and right commitment.
Therefore, I say the proposed signaling proposal is fundamentally at odds with fatalism, which would accept the current situation as unchangeable.
@ImmutableLawyer has already provided reasoning as to why an audit is both a necessary and constructive step to address the current ICF governance impasse –
Will just briefly add that, the proposed audit is not a speculative exercise. Rather, it’s standard practice in responsible governance. The requested audit is scoped to yield germane and objective findings that can be meaningfully instructive for optimized organizational performance and targeted improvements.
Typically, foundations with assets exceeding $20 million undergo similarly scoped audits every 2-3 years. What is irregular is that ICF has not hitherto, initiated a comprehensive/ordinary audit examining its governance/finances/ops nearly 8 years into establishment. Comprehensive audits with focus on sufficiency of controls are common requirements for non-profit organizations in many jurisdictions, ensuring compliance with applicable laws and statutory regulations. They are particularly relevant following substantial leadership changes, as observed with the ICF over the past 11 months.
The audit aims to identify and address issues that may have been inadequately managed or overlooked; evaluating organizational practices that might discourage intellectual honesty, ethical considerations, transparency standards, and accountability frameworks. By providing a clear, factual basis of the ICF’s current state, the audit will establish a foundation for the foundation in identifying necessary reforms for its organizational efficiency and integrity.
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Some additional background and context:
The ICF operates under federal regulatory oversight due to its international purview, with the Swiss Federal Supervisory Board for Foundations (FSAF) serving as the relevant national supervisory authority.
The FSAF’s job is to ensure that the foundation operates in alignment with its given mandate, adheres to its articles of association, and complies with prevailing Swiss laws. In providing oversight for the foundation, the FSAF oversees the allocation of foundation assets and requires the submission of an annual statutory filing. This filing is comprised of:
- an annual activity report;
- an audit report; and
- the accounts of the foundation.
The audit report included in the ICF’s annual statutory filing is much simpler than the “ordinary audit” requested in the proposal. The annual audit is prepared and submitted by Wadsack – from what I understand. It’s less audit and more certifying financial statements. These statutory filings are confidential and not accessible to the public.
Given these statutory requirements, it’s perplexing that the ICF demonstrates operational challenges in sharing annual reports with the community.
The existing regulatory framework and filing requirements suggest that the ICF should have the capacity to provide more comprehensive and on-time public reporting, given the overlap between statutory and public reporting content.
The perceived discrepancy between statutory compliance and public transparency is strange.
Also, please note: The Swiss accounting nomenclature can be a bit confusing – an “ordinary audit” is not so ordinary. It’s an extraordinary audit.
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These are good questions.
Can I confirm/clarify what you are asking first?
Are you asking how we can recompose the Foundation Council in the event all its members are dismissed? Currently, there are only three (3) FC members – but highly unlikely all three are dismissed at once.
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I think it’s of vital importance to implement mechanism that allow more transparency and accountability in all aspects related to the operations of the ICF.
plus we need to develop frameworks for many processes and aspects as a community that will allow this, even if it takes a lot of pulling and pushing until a consensus is reached
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I’m seeing a lot of comments on CT asking why not just disband the foundation?
You can’t just disband bc the foundation is a pain in the ass to manage. Swiss foundations were designed to be persistent and sovereign. Can be good or a very bad bad thing.
Legal grounds for dissolution are specific for Swiss Stiftungs.
-
The foundation’s purpose has been fulfilled or can no longer be fulfilled.
-
The foundation’s assets are no longer sufficient to pursue its purpose.
-
The foundation’s purpose has become illegal or immoral.
Decision to Dissolve:
This decision is typically made by the foundation board.
In some cases, the supervisory authority may order the dissolution if the purpose has become immoral.
The FSAF must approve all dissolution requests. And it doesn’t generally approve dissolution requests from boards unless endowment has been exhausted.
There are also situations where the purpose is not immoral, but the activities of the foundation are immoral. In this case, FSAF will seize assets and have them transferred to a comparable Swiss entity or academic institution. The assets stay in Swiss.
And then finally, there’s the lesser known nuclear option that can be exercised by the founder. But I won’t get into that.
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Exact same situation and position than @Brendan-WhisperNode.
The main takeaway here is that trust has been damaged and needs to be restored for the Cosmos ecosystem to thrive again.
An audit may well be a first formal step towards this goal.
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Thank you @Cosmos_Nanny for getting this in motion and bringing this to the community’s attention
I am in favour of this call to audit. Perforing such an audit is a healthy exercise to conduct for any leading role within an ecosystem
I would propose to the community that you separate the following statement
YES - The voter expresses “no confidence” in the recent and current leadership of the Interchain Foundation (ICF). The voter supports the formal submission of a request to the Federal Supervisory Authority for Foundations (FSAF), being the relevant supervisory authority for the ICF under Swiss law, to conduct an “ordinary audit” of the Interchain Foundation.
I would argue we should have a separate option proposal WRT to the no confidence vote after the financial audit has been completed.
Bundling the no confidence vote, as is currently presented, with a request to audit implies you’re coming to the table already assuming certain outcomes.
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Based (and brave, i have been in your shoes)
So I think that the reason that these are together is that there are already reasons for no confidence, and that’s actually what triggers an ordinary audit.
At Govmos, we believe there is room for enhancement in the transparency of the ICF. This has been a debated issue for many years, and the prolonged duration has made finding a solution increasingly challenging. However, it is worth acknowledging that the ICF, under new leadership, has attempted to evolve. Yet, it appears that these efforts have fallen short of delivering the desired results.
The ICF’s role in the ecosystem is pivotal, and the continuation of these criticisms is not tenable. We posit that a direct approach may be more detrimental than beneficial. As @BendyOne stated, “The smart move for the ICF now is to conduct the audit without it needing to be voted on. Even if the audit shows everything to be perfect, we know that the community at large struggles to trust the ICF, and trust isn’t earned by being compelled.”
We firmly align with this perspective and believe that the most balanced and suitable approach would be for the hub to encourage the ICF towards new leadership that would willingly undertake this audit. We do not advocate for the hub to threaten legal action or impose an independent audit upon the ICF.
Thanks for reading,
Govmos.
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There is no reason for anybody in the community to believe that the foundation will do anything that governance says.
Unless of course you believe that the foundation complied with proposal 787.
Keep in mind that I do not believe that this proposal is in any way shape or form and attempt to take legal action against the foundation.
It is a declaration of no confidence in the current leadership of the ICF, a position that you seem to share – and a request for an audit based on that declaration.
A legal audit shouldn’t be seen as a threat. The ICF should confidently welcome the audit in order to build trust. If they don’t, it just further proves that the audit is even more necessary.
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Let us rephrase: we might eventually support a “no confidence” vote in the future. At present, we simply want to emphasize that the ICF is in the process of reviewing candidates to completely revamp the Foundation Council. We suggest the community should at least give them the chance to demonstrate a potential shift towards transparency. Therefore, we recommend waiting, as a pressing action from the Hub could do more harm than good.
It is no secret that some members of the community, including you, consistently hold negative opinions regarding the ICF. However, it should be remembered that this position does not reflect the entire community. At Govmos, we lean towards the possibility that the ICF will eventually provide more clarity. This is why we believe it is essential to give them a chance to express positive actions with the renewed council. Only if they fall short of promises once more would we consider following the no-confidence vote discussed in this proposition.
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It’s been too long without any real change whatsoever, and I tire of watching number and ecosystem reputation go down.
Look at what @ImmutableLawyer has to say.
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